Spain

09/17/2012

The good folks at Travel + Leisure Asia allowed me to republish this essay I wrote for their September food issue, which is on newsstands now (go buy it -- writers need to eat!)

It's about labeling food, something that seems ever more slippery to me these days. But it's also about travel, and the thought processes of chefs, and what I think is (generally) a positive trend in the restaurant world: Chefs learning more about other ways of cooking, and subtly employing that knowledge. Enjoy.

In Bangkok, I run a Thai restaurant. The food we
serve, in my mind, is resolutely Thai (though there are aspects to the cooking
process, and a few ingredients, that are not). I have always cringed when
people told me, or when I read in a review, that my restaurant serves ‘fusion’
Thai – partly because of the detractive nature of the term, and partly because
I don’t believe this to be true.

Gently, I’ve tried to bend the boundaries of Thai
cooking – smoking something here, curing something there, putting Thai fried
chicken on a Thai coconut waffle – without breaking them. Because I, like many
others chefs, have lived in fear of the word fusion. But I’m not sure this word
means much at all, anymore. Or if we, as chefs and consumers, should give it
much weight.

Just like the word authentic (the flimsiest food
descriptor of all), fusion is a deeply misleading term. Great cooking cultures
– Thai for one, but also more recent cuisines in Australia, the Americas, Goa,
South Africa – have evolved because of a tendency to absorb the ideas,
ingredients, and techniques of migrating cooks. So when do we stop, erm, fusing?

If one
wants to cook traditional recipes, that’s just fine with me. And I firmly
believe the world’s great cooking cultures should be guarded for posterity. But
it doesn’t mean we all ought to cook exactly what we grew up eating. Imagine a
world where cooking didn’t cross-pollinate – a tomato-less Italy, a China
without chilies, a Bangkok without woks. It’s depressing.

My recent trip to Spain reinforced the notion that
the fine dining world has moved beyond a fear of fusion. This began in Girona,
at a restaurant called El Cellar de Can Roca.

“The
first course, the amuse,” my waiter explained, “represents the chef’s most recent
travels around the world,” as he presented me with spheres of food, perched on
a steel structure, like gumballs roosting on a leafless tree. I wondered if
there was a tinge of irony, or even jealousy, in his monotone, as he introduced
this work of edible experience.

My first bite, a taste of Korea which I plucked
from the top branch, rudely awoke a palate that had been lazing for days on sheep
cheese and buttery ham and subtle, olive oil-soaked seafood. Suddenly, I
struggled with a mouthful of pungent miso. Pow!

The next bite took us to Beirut, I believe, then
Mexico, then Morocco. But it wasn’t until the chef – who was raised in his
family’s Girona restaurant, studying classic Catalan food – was on more
familiar ground that his cooking began to resonate. I remembered most the
meal’s small, informative turns on flavor, like a delicately smoked sliver of
anchovy swimming in a soup of gingered cherry and amaretto, and crispy lamb
breast with forest mushrooms poking through a pillow of creamed morels, but I
quickly forgot the miso ball.

Until I returned to Asia, and began to unpack my
own experiences in this essay.

I would like to think that mainstream cooking –
not the dreamy three-star stuff above but everyday restaurant cooking – is on
the cusp of real change. A time when people will stop uttering that tired,
“fusion, confusion” analogy under their breath and accept that food is
essentially formless; it is an interchangeable medium that does not necessarily
lose its unique character if it borrows another ingredient, or technique, from
a place far away. Because now, we often venture far away. Most people didn’t
used to – and most especially working-class cooks.

We talk of a global economy, of global food shortages
and international migrations, but rarely do people talk about this apparition
that is global cuisine. Unless it’s negative. Some of that is well-deserved,
especially during the salad days of fusion, where a squirt of Sriracha or the
sting of wasabi was used clumsily by uninformed cooks and promulgated by
restaurant chains. Bad fusion food abounds in Bangkok, where recent culinary graduates
splatter pizza or spaghetti with something that sort of tastes Thai. But
serious chefs have figured out how to use each others’ arsenal of ingredients,
and well.

And so, quietly, many are cooking whatever they
feel like, unannounced. Because they know more about what they’re doing than we
do, we don’t notice as much.

There are, as far as I can tell, two opposing
schools of thought when it comes to cooking. Those that think that our culinary
order hangs in the balance as soon as the simplest traditions are tweaked, and
those that put miso paste in butter because it tastes really good.

And on my last trip through Spain, most of the
memorable meals I ate were cooked by chefs that fell into the latter category.
There was a crisp, tiny cone filled with the silky insides of a ripe tomato at
Tickets, in Barcelona, that slowly rose above the ordinary with the quiet heat
of grated wasabi. It was there, but you had to seek it out in your head, as
Albert Adria must have when he created the dish. And a rabbit taco, an elegant
little tapa stuffed with braised rabbit in a gentle cumin and chili braise,
like Mexico viewed in soft, Mediterranean twilight. These geographical leaps
felt nothing but natural.

There are many reasons Spain has emerged as a
world leader in gastronomy – it’s a combination of great product, innovation,
climate, history and a strong traditional food culture. But, in my mind, it’s
the lack of dogma in their modern cooking that has allowed Spain to move so far
forward, so fast. While France eased
into the idea of adoption, Spain had already thrown open their doors to spices,
sensations, molecular techniques and whatever else might push their food
forward. Labels be damned. Delicious was the measuring stick.

Which brings me back to my original point – travel
is changing the way we cook, the depth of our understanding, and the
ingredients chefs choose to use in restaurants. Nowhere in Europe was this more
apparent to me than in San Sebastian – a place steeped in Basque traditions,
that remains open to most anything.

As I wound through the old town I passed cooking
stores with hand-forged Japanese sushi knives in the windows, and Asian basket steamers.
There was that old-school mishmash of Gallic and Spanish, too – the
chocolatiers and cheese shops and baguettes and olive oils and hams. And then I
went to Arzak for lunch.

Elena Arzak, the proprietor of this legendary
Basque restaurant, led me through her 100,000 bottle wine cellar. But what fascinated
me most was their spice room – 1200 different flavors, neatly catalogued, at
the disposal of chefs who work exclusively on recipe development.

The meal was one of the best I’ve ever had, and
often surprised me – a chunk of goat cheese was offset by the astringent glow
of turmeric, silky foie gras was encased in crisp seaweed, like a lighter,
umami-laced tempura. But the local products were what opened my eyes. There was
a sardine speared atop a ripe strawberry, and an unspeakably delicious dish of
beef tongue and dover sole. After the meal I told Juan-Mari Arzak and his
daughter Elena what I loved best, and she smiled. “We have 10, sometimes 15
visiting chefs in our kitchen. They come to cook, on their vacation. And they
notice simple things like you, things we think are normal they think are
fantastic, and this excites me.”

That night, I wound through the famous pintxos
bars of the old town, drinking wine and hopping from bar to bar. And there were
so many little sidesteps on tradition that I forget them all. A scoop of
mole-flavored ice cream atop a pig’s ear terrine; a pork rib braised in sweet
fruit and cumin like a tagine; a grilled prawn with the subtle scent of
lemongrass.

My last meal in Basque country was at Azurmendi,
in Bilbao. It’s a stunning place, but what sets it apart is Chef Eneko Axta’s
precise yet playful approach to Basque classics. As we slurped an oyster, for instance, a waft
of sea mist drifted across the table, as water plucked from the Bay of Biscay
was poured over dry ice and purple seaweed. Does that sound pretentious?
Because it’s not. It’s surreal, like eating an oyster in a secreted cave.

After the meal, Axta took me upstairs to his
greenhouse to show me his peas, which are picked at night, and cooked in a
jelly made from the fat of the world’s best ham. “I’m coming to Bangkok this
fall, I think” he said, “would you show me around, and can we cook?”

“Yes, of course.”

And if all goes right, sometime next year, long
after this article is published, as diners overlook the vineyards outside of
Bilbao, a waft of kaffir lime rind might slither across a white tablecloth,
like a jungle vine. Here in Bangkok, a slice of raw fish might find itself
perched upon a strawberry. And if we both do it right, people won’t call it
fusion as they eat. They’ll nod their heads, as if it always was.

06/26/2012

I can't remember the first time I heard about the Basque town of Donostia (usually referred to, in Spanish, as San Sebastian). It might have been in a food magazine, or on the tip of a chef's tongue in some impassioned, late-night discussion about where the best place in the world might be to eat. But there it was, buried in my psyche, a promise of delicious things. It remained there for years; an itch unscratched.

There are plenty of stories scattered across the internet that explain, mostly with wonderment, about how good the eating is in this part of Basque country. And the reason is simple, I think: People here really and truly care about cooking and product. Perhaps more then anything else. The parade of cooking celebrities and shower of Michelin stars didn’t happen by chance; the movement began to simmer a long time ago, in basement taverns, and aging seafood halls, in gastronomic societies. And you need to see that first, before it all comes into focus.

Donostia is a town built on the foundations of a food culture both sophisticated and primal – there is decorum and fine dining; dark taverns where drunks munch on tiny sandwiches and sip watery beer; there are the vineyards and butchers and fishmongers and wonderful chocolate and pastry shops; there are foreigners and Basque folk foraging side-by-side for the best pintxos through the tunneling restaurants of the old town; and there is the cold sea and the green mountains that supply what might be the second-best market in Spain. From the second we arrived, I was smitten.

For the past two weeks I’ve been turning this idea over in my mind – what makes the food here better than anywhere else? And instead of answering that, I’ll just tell you what I ate at a seafood restaurant.

About thirty minutes from San Sebastian, through the mountains and then around the foggy coast, is a town called Getaria. Vineyards that produce tart, Txakoli grapes hug the hillsides that look down over an old church and a wide elbow of sand. There is a harbor for fishing boats. And a restaurant called Elkano, and a fashion museum.

I was told that I must eat at Elkano by Eneko Axta, a prodigiously talented chef whose brilliant cooking I would later try at Azurmendi, in Bilbao. The Chef told me that this was “classic Basque seafood cooking – the best kind.”

The grill at Elkano

When we entered the restaurant at 2pm it was empty – it started to fill at about 3, which apparently is fish time in Getaria. The menu is spare. There are several fish to choose from, all fresh from the local fleet docked outside, a few starters, and your meal begins with bread and good olive oil.

Owner/manager Pedro Aitor approached us and warmly explained the seafood available. Then, he asked if I minded bones, and when I shook my head, his eyes lit up. “The red mullet is here, now, only for a few weeks,” he said, smiling. “It is the one from under the rocks, the small, sweet red mullet. Everyone here orders turbot, but for me, the red mullet from the reef close to shore speaks of this season, of the spring. I would never serve one from the deep sea, these are the babies, the first of the year.” His eyes were distant, and I wondered if he was looking at the sea when he spoke, addressing it as much as us.

So we order red mullet. And hake throats (kokotxas), which he says “are our favorite thing to eat, and only one per fish.” The throats are done three ways, lightly fried with an egg batter, grilled and grilled and served with a mild salsa verde. We also order squid, grilled with ink sauce “only one boat fishes for squid now, in Getaria, and we get the best catch.” Also, a bottle of Verdejo from Rueda, brisk and very bright, from pre-Phyloxera vines, crisp and cold like the afternoon outside.

The hake throats, gelatinous with a wisp of smoke from the grill, are wobbly, saline bites. Strangely, as I eat them, I’m reminded of China – of the sea cucumber and shark fin and fish maw that takes their place at the Chinese table because of texture rather than taste. Except that these hake throats, like the juicy, mild flesh of the fish, do taste pretty good.

The meal got better from there. The red squid was served beside a stripe of ink cooked with salt and onion; it was tender and only adorned with salt, cooked as perfectly as one is able to. Living in Thailand, I eat a lot of squid, which is often charred or chewy; none is as tender and simple as this. My wife and I smiled between bites and sips of wine, realizing this is one of those meals we’re never going to forget.

Then, although all the other tables are digging into large, flat turbot crisp around the fins, we are presented with two tiny, tender red mullet. The owner encourages me to suck the juice and brain from its skull and I do.

Have you ever sucked out the contents of a prawn’s head – one that’s fresh and fatty? It was like that, but better. Like the first breath you take after a long drive that ends at the edge of the ocean. Like sea urchin butter. Like red mullet brains, the first of the year, from under the rocks.

The flesh of the little fish was firm and sweet, tight like crabmeat, and again it wasn’t sauced or spiced, merely salted. The final flourish was a black piece of slate, with a slash of tart apple sauce, and on it sat the barely seared livers of the fish we were eating. It was delicate and rich, just a nibble, and it left me wanting more.

Which I do now, and always will, until I get back to Elkano.

(Part two, on mushrooms and pintxos, beef and spring lamb, coming sometime in the relatively near future)

06/12/2012

I’d like to write about two weeks spent eating in Spain. About meals that I never thought I’d eat. About going to those places that people like me only dream about until we’re there, and Elena Arzak is smiling warmly and asking you if you like her pigeon while a waiter scrapes crumbs off the table with some polished pewter tool and a gruff sommelier splashes more ancient Rioja in your glass. Holy shit. Pinch me. This is real.

Now, I understand that but a month ago I wrote about lists, and fancy restaurants, and how preposterous these indexes of greatness are. And I meant it, sort of, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to eat at the world’s best restaurants, whatever that means. And in two weeks in Spain my lovely wife endured four very long and meaningful meals with me. Not everything was good, but it was, for me at least, a transformative sort of experience.

First, I’ll share with you my meal at Tickets, Albert Adria’s (brother of Ferran, of el bulli fame) tapas restaurant in Barcelona. Calling Tickets a tapas restaurant is sort of like calling a Ducati a motor scooter. Yes, the form is the same: small bites eaten in succession, often with bread, some things from the mountains, some from the sea. Yes, the ingredients are familiar, especially if you are Spanish. But the way they are delivered – the pops and crunches and clever twists – are just delightful. The tricks that were perfected at el bulli are employed sparingly here – a spherification of seawater here, a caviar of olive oil there – but the precision and care that defines this kitchen is evidenced throughout.

We ate tomato smeared on perfectly crisp slivers of country bread, with a translucent jelly of iberico that melted like luxurious, ethereal pig fat. Severely perfect segments of oranges swimming in a mild soup of olive oil, mint, and a suggestion of mustard. An oyster, with a bouquet of microscopic flowers and cubes of sour apple. There were crunchy cones of tomato that had a whisper of wasabi – a combination so subtle and simple that I thought about it that night before bed, rolling around, wondering about the possibilities of cooking so precisely that flavors might come to you after you had consumed the food.

Then there was a rabbit taco, laced with cumin and chili, like Mexico colored by the gentler spectrum of Catalan cooking. And soft, steamed buns stuffed with ribbons of lardo and bacon, that slid down like the best Chinese baozi. We gulped a bottle of PSI – a great second label of Pingus from the Ribera. My friend Veronica wept after the rabbit taco, because she had a rabbit once, and never realized that it might taste so wonderful.

And as we skipped off into the Barcelona night, bellies full, bursting with pleasure and a little shame, one thing was certain: we had just witnessed something really, truly special. A chef communicating with diners, executing his vision in a way that wasn’t pretentious or exhausting. Just really fucking good.